The Adventure Continues...Just discovered that my ring & pinion are NOT the 5.43 I was told they were, but rather the #@!&% 6.17. Oh great...back to the drawing board.

Dropped off several projects at the local sheetmetal shop including a big ol' odd shaped box that will go in the big ol' hole I cut in the roof. It will eventually house the A/C as well as form the base for part of the roof deck.

Put a bunch of new pix on my Flickr Album for any who've never seen a vintage school bus with a "moonroof".

Spent the last couple of days patching the wheel wells. Like a lot of older rigs, they were rusted through in a number of places. Discovered that welding fresh metal onto old, thin, nearly rusted through stuff is a bear. Dialing my mig down low helped but it was still a royal PITA trying to avoid blowouts. Hope the rest of the metal repair work goes better. There's still a lot to do.

Picked up several pieces from the sheetmetal shop and have begun installing the A/C housing in the rear of the roof. Had to reinforce all around the big hole I cut since the upper portion of the A/C box will also serve as the base for part of the roof deck and needs to be very solid. Also had a couple of window deletes fabbed and got my entry door frame skinned. Unfortunately, the welding they did on it appears to have warped it slightly out of shape so now I'll have to make some critical "adjustments". The shape is so complex (thanks to a lot of little compound curves) that it was a bear to build. The older buses don't seem to have any straight lines or right angles. As I told a friend..."I don't need an RV builder to assist me, what I need is a master ship builder builder".

Thanks Chip --- Of course, here I am going into the 14th month of this project and still no end in sight. Well...maybe just a little light off in the distance. The engine is ready but I'm waiting on a tranny to be built from scratch and still no luck finding the right rear end. Little things like that. All we can do is to keep on chipping away at all the "little things" and eventually (if we live long enough) they will all get done and we can then move on down the road in what we have built. That's the prize we have to keep our eyes on. But hey...if it was easy, everyone would be driving vintage Stovebolts, right?

Thanks for the encouragement Chip --- I'll take all I can get. And of course I do accept that like "re-doing an old house"...an old vehicle is never really "finished". But I am anxious to hear it run and get it rolling. I used to build 2-stroke formula motorcycle racing engines pretty much from the ground up and there is nothing quite like the feeling when a bunch of inanimate metal you've pieced together comes to life. Looking forward to that thrill with this old girl.

Just plunked down a huge chunk of change for a brand new, factory built Allison tranny (gulp!). After a year of passing on what few 6-speeds I could find I bit the bullet. It's a 2200MH, double overdrive, 6-speed auto with a parking pawl. As it turns out, probably only about a grand more than what I figured rebuilding some unknown used unit to my specs would likely run. Still a lot to pull together to make it work, but at least that's one more major item to cross off the "must-do" list.

Anybody happen to have a transmission wiring harness from an International truck with a 1000/2000 series Gen 4 Allison laying around?

Just got my drivers door window from Peninsula Glass in place. Odd angles and measures made the cut-out a nail biter. Looks square and simple but was neither. Added a couple of pix to the progress album below. Still need to get the skin on the interior, mount the hinges and a few other things, but at least it constitutes SOME progress.

...... I can't help but chuckle when you said it was a "nail biter". I can truly relate. Had to recut both of my side windows on my panel because the guy but them to "square" the first time and my side windows would only roll up half way.....I simply told him to "follow the pattern". Oh well, I bit my nails and finally got them in the second time